1. Has anyone done a study on the authenticity of some of these letters. For example, I stop by a few letters addressed by St. Severus to St. Dioscorus, and I have to say, there seems to be a question of authenticity there. The date of these letter was well after the departure of St. Dioscorus.

2. This is a question of content, and I hope I am not misreading. In a letter to Hippocrates the seemingly haughty and racist Alexandrine scholastic, St. Severus writes:

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For the holy Cyril also, after he had written a derisive book against Theodore and Diodorus, the teachers of the impiety of Nestorius (and he contends against them and says, Ã‚Â«You have surpassed the open-mouthedness of the heathen, you have shown the impieties of Jewish pride to be nothingÃ‚Â»), sent a message by letter to Proclus of saintly memory bishop of Constantinople not to remove the name of such men from the sacred diptychs, because those of the East clung to the memory of this man.

Does this mean that while St. Cyril may personally anathematize Diodore and Theodore, he allowed them to be celebrated as saints in some other churches, or could this letter be brought to question in authenticity for some scholarly reason?

God bless.

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Vain existence can never exist, for "unless the LORD builds the house, the builders labor in vain." (Psalm 127)

If the faith is unchanged and rock solid, then the gates of Hades never prevailed in the end.

1. Has anyone done a study on the authenticity of some of these letters. For example, I stop by a few letters addressed by St. Severus to St. Dioscorus, and I have to say, there seems to be a question of authenticity there. The date of these letter was well after the departure of St. Dioscorus.

The letter is dated to the year 516-7 A.D. The Patriarch of Alexandria at this time was St. Dioscoros II; it is to this Dioscoros that the letter is addressed, not Dioscoros I. St. Dioscoros I is addressed by St. Severus in a previous letter dated 513-4 A.D. as, "Dioscorus of saintly memory".

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Does this mean that while St. Cyril may personally anathematize Diodore and Theodore, he allowed them to be celebrated as saints in some other churches, or could this letter be brought to question in authenticity for some scholarly reason?

lol You can't just go looking for "scholarly" reasons to doubt something just because it prima facie irks you.

Obviously the context and purpose of this letter need to be considered first, and these are things I personally won't have time to properly investigate right now. Having read some of the proceeding letters very briefly, it looks like St. Severus is concerned with the matter of various cities and congregations of his day wishing to join the non-Chalcedonian Communion. He is thus considering a pastoral concern, which is more or less similar to the one we have considered with regard to the prospect of the re-establishment of inter-communion between our Church and the EO Church.

« Last Edit: March 02, 2007, 02:34:19 AM by EkhristosAnesti »

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No longer an active member of this forum. Sincerest apologies to anyone who has taken offence to anything posted in youthful ignorance or negligence prior to my leaving this forum - October, 2012.

"Philosophy is the imitation by a man of what is better, according to what is possible" - St Severus

There is a Serbian bishop I know who is planning on doing his disertation on Severus and all of his works.

Nice. What point of view is he seeking to advance?

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Anything you could give me would be really helpful. Thanks

If your Bishop wishes to consult any scholars, direct him to the contact information of Professor Youssef Youhanna or Pauline Allen as located at the website linked to by Mina. Professor Youhanna is a Coptic Orthodox member of the Melbourne Diocese, and he's very approachable. If your Bishop cannot read French or German, it's probably advisable that he contact some of these scholars, since lots of Severian research has been performed in these languages (as you can see the from the Bibliography provided at Mina's link).

Your guess is as good as mine. I was told by another bishop who is friends with the guy in question. Although I know the guy, i'm not on "best friend" status with him

I think it was going to be a compelation type of work. The request from my bishop, for this other bishop in Serbia, is ANYTHING I COULD FIND on St. Severus. SO I think he is going to try to reconstruct the whole thing, and do something with it in Serbian.

I'm going to suggest those scholars to my sources, but i'm not sure that this Serbian bishop speaks any other languages...so that might be a problem. But hey, doesn't hurt to ask.